« Previous month (May 2008) | Main | Next month (Jul 2008) »
Monday Jul 28, 2008

64. Russian (former Soviet) director Grigory Kozintsev’s "Korol Lir" (King Lear) (1971): An unsung masterpiece on "civilization heading to doom"














Time and again people have asked me which movie is my all time favorite. I have often said without much hesitation: the Russian film Grigory Kozintsev’s King Lear. Even close friends wonder if I have lost my wits because they expect my favorite would be Orson Welles's Citizen Kane or a work of Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, or even Terrence Mallick, my favorite directors.

I fell in love with the Ukranian-born director Kozintsev’s King Lear some 30 years ago and I continue to be enraptured by the black-and-white film shot in cinemascope each time I see it. Each time you view the film, one realizes that a creative genius can embellish another masterpiece from another medium by providing food for thought---much beyond what Shakespeare offered his audiences centuries ago. Purists like Lord Laurence Olivier and Peter Brook offered cinematic versions of the play that remained true to what the Bard originally intended, only refining performances within the accepted matrices.
[Read More]

Posted at 10:05PM Jul 28, 2008 by zubinabraham in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Thursday Jul 17, 2008

35. US director Terence Mallick's "Days of Heaven" (1978): Seeing heaven by twilight on earth


Director Terrence Malick strides the world of cinema as a colossus in the company of Soviet directors Andrei Tarkovsky (www.nostalghia.com), Sergei Parajanov (www.parajanov.com), and Grigori Kozintsev. After viewing Days of Heaven for the third time in 20 years, the film touches me the same way as did the works of the three aforementioned Soviet filmmakers.


The title is from Deuteronomy 11:21:

"That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

Technically the movie can be appreciated by each of the three elements that build the final compound product.[Read More]

Posted at 08:52PM Jul 17, 2008 by zubinabraham in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Saturday Jul 05, 2008

A drop from the ‘Pensive Bowl’ - recalling portions of the last few days

July 3
- Zubin finds himself hauling more electronic gadgets than clothes while on the move (A child hood fantasy that’s lost its charm).
July 1
- Zubin having logged in excess of 16 contiguous hours is wondering if it may just be coincidence that his comp seems to be working faster than usual.
June 29
- Zubin ‘s serendipitous dialogue that started 6 month ago with his daimonic, has ended on the best possible note with his cherished convictions intact.
June 27
- Zubin wholeheartedly thanks all those that were kind enough to volunteer (over the last couple days) their one perpetual yet fleeting possession.
June 24
- Zubin isn’t pleased that one of the better movies of the year may have subsequently influenced a few in possibly making not-necessarily-the-best decisions.
June 21
- Zubin thinks that the unexpected coming of age of his least favored guard, makes a strong case for a preemptive change in phase.
June 17
- Zubin possibly just heard the finest rendering of Nessun Dorma, that wasnt sung by Luciano.
June 14
- Zubin is curious, but has not reason to be scared as he is no feline. (A Duchenne cheshire smile).
June 12
- Zubin believes this week will be noted in the annals as the day when a major corporate player first announced its historical change in market strategy.
June 8
- Zubin’s fear of having to choose between Euro’08, the Canadian GP and the French open finals now seems wistful.
- Zubin is going to miss watching probably one of the best single handed backhand (he remembers watching) and wonders how effective the Belgians’ backhand may have been in today’s one sided final.
- Zubin for a change wants the offense to win! Go Roger!


"Waste Allocation Load Lifter Axiom-Class" - voilà!

Posted at 07:40PM Jul 05, 2008 by zubinabraham in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Tuesday Jul 01, 2008

47. Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" (1954): Opening new windows to reflect on the classic thriller

After viewing the film three times over a span of 20-odd years, the film urges a keen viewer to go beyond the appreciation of the cinematic challenges that Hitchcock sets for himself to overcome. For instance, one need not merely appreciate that this film is one of the rare instances in cinema where all the sounds are "diegetic"— recorded on the soundtrack are sounds from within the visual world captured by the camera. Further, one need no longer be intrigued by the amoral perspective of the voyeur, represented by L.B. Jefferies (James Stewart), the good, average American bachelor with a robust, modest, creative career and a rich doting girl friend, Lisa, trying to rope him into marriage. After three viewings you are no longer wide-eyed about the blending of the viewer's perspective with those of Jefferies' perspective, historically a major feat of Hitchcock.

Newer perspectives of the film crystallize if you have seen over 20 Hitchcock films as I fortunately have.

First, Rear Window is one of the rare films of Hitchcock where women emerge smarter and stronger than men—the last scene has the hero with two legs in a cast and his lady love switching reading material to what she prefers to read over what the hero would prefer her to read, even though for the first time she has switched to trousers to humor her future husband's vision of his kind of wife. Similar ends were obvious in Family Plot, Spellbound, Rebecca and, by inference of the final choice, in Marnie. The final shot in Rear Window is a sexual reversal of the final shot of Mr and Mrs Smith.[Read More]

Posted at 08:55PM Jul 01, 2008 by zubinabraham in Personal  |  Comments[0]